Second Guessing

Second Guessing used to be one of my least favourite songs on Reckoning. A lot of the things I loved about early R.E.M. songs – the obscure lyrics, the discordant chord changes – were missing from this song. I've also always found the production of this song very trebly and thin, like there is no bottom end. That said, I find this an exciting song to hear played live and I thought it sounded great at the Dublin rehearsals.

The hardest thing about covering this song was getting the guitar sound right. On the album it sounds, to me, like there are layers and layers of guitars all playing the same thing. So I went for the same approach, playing it four times and panning each one slightly differently.

I've often played this on guitar but only recently did I play along with the album version and realised just how fast it is. Fortunately there are no intricate guitar parts so I was able to record it in real time.